


Everyone Knows

by pirategirljack



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Makeouts, sami's weekly one shots 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-13 00:28:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5687560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirategirljack/pseuds/pirategirljack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has a new "torture" for Sherlock--and Joan is needed for this one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyone Knows

“So what’s Everyone’s cost this time?” Watson said as she cruised through the door on the way to the kitchen and saw Sherlock still glaring at the computer screen. Glaring with his whole face involved in the frown and his hands knotted up before him. Joan had always been amazed at how fiercely Sherlock could slump, too, when he stood so meticulously straight and never relaxed even the smallest muscle in his body. 

“They haven't said yet.”

“It's been days. Usually, they're back to you within a few hours.”

“Indeed.” And he didn't say anything else, so she hefted her groceries to finish her trip to the kitchen--when the computer beeped. “Hm.” Sherlock said, and sat up all at once to check the message.

And then he sat back, slowly, an entirely different look on his face.

“What is it? Striptease? Opera? Standing outside with something embarrassing written on a sandwich board?”

“You shouldn't give them ideas,” he said, but his heart wasn't in it, and curiosity made her move closer to see for herself. 

The message was short and sweet: “Everyone can get the information you need, but it's difficult. More so than usual. Our cost is high. Everyone wants you to make out with Joan Watson.”

“Oh,” she said. The bag of groceries suddenly felt heavy, and she straightened slowly so she wouldn't drop it.

“It is a conundrum,” he said. Not looking at her, she noticed. “They've never included you in their costs before. I, of course, can't ask you to--”

“Let's do it.”

“--excuse me?”

“I mean, it's no big deal. Right? You always go for sensuality without emotion, and we need the information to get back to the case, so what's the problem?”

Sherlock turned his chair to look at her, and she did her best not to fidget. She was pretty sure he noted her rising heartbeat and hoped she wouldn't blush while he was looking at her. “This is unlike you,” was all he said.

She shrugged. “Needs must,” she said, as diffidently as she could. She didn't sound nearly as nonchalant as she wanted to, but he only stared her down for another heartbeat or three before snapping his attention back to the computer. He typed two letters back: OK.

The response was immediate. “With feeling. No cheating. We’re watching.” And the light beside the webcam blinked twice, like a wink.

Joan put the groceries down carefully, and smoothed her hands down her dress. It was a sleek grey and white one, another of the ones he'd bought her for one of their unexpected needs. She liked that he could fit her perfectly without her having to try anything on; it was convenient, flattering, something like intimacy. She never mentioned it.

She only paused a second before joining him closer to the webcam. Sherlock stood, shaking out his arms the way he did before sparring practice, that frown still on his face. “You don't have to do this, Watson. Our agreement was that I and I alone would submit to their embarrassments. There is no need to involve yourself.”

“I can help. It would be needlessly complicating to deny their payment, and it might lose us all we've done this case.”

The computer beeped: “She’s smart.”

Then: “We’re waiting.”

Joan was half sure she could feel them waiting, who knew how many eyes focused on her and her partner, and she suddenly wasn't sure why she’d said yes. There was the logical reason, of course. She hasn't lied there. But if it was just logic, why had her heart stuttered in her chest when she read the request? Why was she so nervous now? 

Why was she so shy?

Joan couldn't remember the last time she'd felt shy. It must've been sometime in high school, before--

Sherlock stepped closer. He was as close as he'd been that day she was kidnapped years ago, as tensely focused on her face. There was a line between them, there always had been, and this would cross it, if he actually followed through. Sherlock was not one for physical contact, usually, and rarely touched her, though he didn't stop her from touching him. She didn't abuse that privilege; she knew how rare human contact was for him and how uncomfortable it could make him when it wasn't his idea.

She wondered what this would be like.

Sherlock still occasionally brought girls home for sport, but she stayed out of their way and despite coming down to find half naked strangers drinking coffee in her kitchen, she'd found his--let’s call it courting--to be impressively discrete. She's never seen him seduce a woman, and only vaguely seen women try to seduce him. She had almost no context for Sherlock in anything even remotely romantic.

No actual, real-life context, anyway.

He was still staring, and she could feel him struggling. They were very close. And this close, she saw that there was uncertainty there in his eyes, a question he didn't have an answer to. She held his gaze and nodded just a fraction, and backed it up by closing the few inches between their hand and squeezing his fingers.

The computer beeped. They both ignored it.

Sherlock was always all sudden action, quick movement, but when he raised his hands, it was smooth and slow, as if he thought she might run away, or he might. As if he didn't want to break anything.

He took her face in his hands. He looked into her eyes again, searching, a different sort of intensity there. A sort that made her belly flutter and her knees feel watery.

And then he kissed her.

It was a gentle kiss, more gentle than anything she'd ever seen from Sherlock and his sudden explosions of noise and force, more gentle than she'd ever imagined he could be. It surprised her, and that made her react without thinking--she kissed back, whole heartedly, and snaked her arms up around his neck and shoulders, pulling him close. She thought for a moment that he was going to pull away, but instead, he slid one hand up into her hair and looped the other around her waist to pull her into him, folding around her without asking her to bend herself to fit him. He was taller than her, as most people were; she'd half expected to have to stretch and arch awkwardly to reach him, but instead, he came to meet her, and they fit together like puzzle pieces, each filling in the other’s gaps.

He was strong, too, all wire and muscle without bulk, and he held her as steady as a stone, but his hands were still soft and gentle, his mouth softer still. She deepened the kiss. She kept it going. He didn't ask for more than she had to give. And somewhere in the middle, it stopped being a performance, and became a real thing, a new facet of their relationship.

Joan Watson and Sherlock Holmes were kissing, and they were as good at making out as they were at solving crimes.

The computer beeped again just as they came up for air, Sherlock’s hands back on her face, her’s sliding down from his cheekbones to his collar, to his chest. Neither of them wanted to break the contact, so they stayed molded together, their lips still close, their foreheads together, trying to make sense of what had just happened as they came back to themselves.

And then they pulled apart.

Joan felt cold and empty without his warmth wrapped around her--God, he was like a furnace in this chilly old townhouse--but they'd done what had been asked of them. That had to be enough.

There was a string of messages on the screen.

“Kiss already.”  
“We’ve been waiting for ages.”  
“Oh holy shit they're actually doing it”  
“Damn, that's serious.”

And then, a file, with all the information they'd been looking for, page after page of reports, and evidence of misdoings, and photographic proof. It was everything they needed to finish their case.

“Captain Gregson will be pleased. Thank you,” Sherlock said, all tight formality again. “Until we meet again.”

The encrypted chat window closed, and Sherlock flipped through the pages one after another, scanning, muttering. Joan was still standing behind him, stunned.

“I'm just--I've got these groceries--”

“Of course, yes. This is enough to convict him eight times over, at least, I’ll call the Precinct.”

He didn't look up. She took the groceries and fled. And then she took her sweet time putting everything away, fussing over all those little minor organizational tasks she had been neglecting because there was always something else more important to do. Organization was soothing. It was better than dealing with whatever was going on in her chest. It was a performance. A required behavior. Everyone was messing with them, trying to rattle their cages, and she knew it, and whatever he felt, whatever had happened, it wasn't real. It couldn't be real. It didn't mean anything. She'd just been without a date in a while, and she must be hormonal or something, and--

“Watson.”

She jumped. She tried to cover it, and failed.

“We have something we must talk about, before everything becomes--awkward.”

“Yes, of course.”

“That was--”

“No, I mean--”

“Watson. It was--kind of you, to do that. It was by no means required. But--but there was--unexpected side effects to our performance. I had not considered that my--feelings--might be so--”

“Sherlock.” And it was her turn to come toward him as if he might run away. “Are you saying you felt that, too?”

“It was impossible not to.”

She was only a few feet from him now, studying his face, trying to figure out where this was going. All she saw was conflict. “So. What now?”

He looked like he was ready to launch into one of his speeches, probably about how emotions conflict with the mental faculties, and belong to base urges. Probably about keeping professional and romantic connections separate. Probably about anything but what she finally understood she wanted to hear and would never say out loud if he didn't say it first.

“I want to see if the--connection--between us still exists. I want to see--what else we could be.”

She sat down on the closest chair so suddenly, she rattled the legs.

“Watson?” And he rushed to her side, kneeling to see into her face but not touching her. If she'd stopped breathing, he'd know exactly what to do, but emotional trauma was something Sherlock didn't have a skill for. “Watson, I didn't mean--”

He stopped in his tracks the second she put her hand on his arm. “I'm fine, it's just, it's a lot to get my head around.” She paused. “What are our new parameters?”

“No parameters. Just--communication. An experiment. To see if this--” he waved his hand back and forth between them, “--is functional.”

“An experiment,” and she smiled.

Sherlock Holmes, first and for a long time only Consulting Detective to the NYPD, lifted himself up on his knees and kissed her. Because he wanted to. Because he felt something real enough that he couldn't deny its existence. And then he scooped her up and together, they went to his room and furthered the experiment.


End file.
